Appropriation and expropriation of indigenous lands in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

The city of São Paulo has the fourth largest presence of indigenous peoples in Brazil. In this article, we relate the growth process of São Paulo to the historical situation of this city’s indigenous peoples. We focus on the incorporation of these peoples in the colonizing process, accomplished with the expropriation of their lands to ensure occupation and possession of colonial territory. Finally, we analyze the peripheralization of these peoples as a historical symptom, which also emerges as an instrument of state action for the development of the city and its urban apparatuses. This analysis is carried out through a bibliographic review of classical and contemporary authors and of reports that address the theme.

urban planning; expropriation; indigenous peoples; peripheralization; São Paulo

Resumo

São Paulo é o quarto município com maior presença dos povos indígenas no Brasil. Neste artigo relacionamos o processo de crescimento da cidade de São Paulo com a situação histórica dos povos indígenas dessa cidade. Temos como foco a incorporação dos indígenas no processo colonizador, a partir da expropriação de suas terras, para garantir a ocupação e o avanço da posse do território colonial. Por fim, analisamos o processo de periferização desses povos como sintoma histórico, que surge também com um instrumento da ação estatal para o desenvolvimento da cidade e de seus aparelhos urbanos. Esta análise é feita por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica de autores clássicos e contemporâneos e dos relatórios que abordam o tema.

planejamento urbano; expropriação; povos indígenas; periferização; São Paulo

Introduction

The city of São Paulo, as well as others in the country, had its origins as an indigenous settlement. In the 16th and 17th centuries, indians from several nations constituted the vast majority of the population in the São Paulo region. However, the indigenous presence in the state of São Paulo has been little discussed historiographically.

According to Monteiro (1984 , p. 22), in the ethnographic panorama of the São Vicente captaincy in the 15th century, at least four culturally distinct regions stood out. Tupi was dominant in the coastal strip between Rio de Janeiro and Baixada Santista, also including some stretches of the present city of São Paulo. In the Vale do Paraíba and Serra da Mantiqueira, there were groups of the Jê language trunks and others which did not belong to the Tupi-Guarani language family. The adjacent region to the west of the state was inhabited by non-Tupi groups, which had links to the indigenous peoples of the Vale do Paraíba. Lastly, to the south and southwest of São Vicente, on the coast and the inland, there were numerous Guarani settlements.

Indeed, according to the 16th century accounts, the Tupiniquim were the main inhabitants of the captaincy of São Vicente until the last decade of the century, maintaining an important concentration of indigenous villages in the Serra and around the site that would become the future village of São Paulo. Monteiro points out that,

although the first sources identify, through ethnic denominations, what can be considered tribal clusters, in fact, the indigenous village represented the main unit of social organization of the Tupi groups. Nevertheless, several communities could maintain very close relations, tied in kinship or alliance networks, without these relations being characterized as more significant political or territorial units. In fact, the union between local units underwent constant mutations resulting from historical circumstances, since the frequent changes in the composition of alliances influenced the character and duration of multi-community ties. This mutability escaped the attention of the chroniclers, who described groups of indigenous villages as if they formed more comprehensive and permanent political groups. ( Monteiro, 1994 , p. 21)

Information about the number and size of Tupiniquim villages in the 16th century is scarce. What is known is that their main settlement at the time of the arrival of the Europeans was that of chief Tibiriçá, the most influential indigenous leader in the region. In the 1550s, this village, known as Inhanpuambuçu and later called Piratininga, became home to the chapel and the precarious São Paulo de Piratininga School. Another important village of the period was Jerebutuba, located twelve kilometers south of the village of Piratininga, near the future district of Santo Amaro. The third village, the most cited one in sixteenth century accounts, appears under the name of Uruaí, commanded by Tibiriçá's brother, located six kilometers east of the village of Piratininga, becoming the base for the Jesuit settlement of São Miguel (ibid., pp. 21-22).

With the establishment of the settlements, as of the colonization process, the mobility, characteristic of the indigenous peoples, was transformed into a domination project, whose keynote was to restrict the Indians in areas determined by the colonizers, providing access for the concessions of sesmarias, in regions previously occupied by indigenous peoples. Thus, the settlements, that is, the hamlets created by the conquerors, were built from the proximity to the village of São Paulo de Piratininga, the first land from which the indigenous people were expropriated. Twelve settlements were then formed, which, according to Petrone (1995) , were Pinheiros, São Miguel, Barueri, Carapicuíba, Guarulhos, Embu, Escada, Itaquaquecetuba, Itapecerica, São José, Peruíbe and Queluz, which were administered by the Jesuits and lay people, based on the provision of indigenous labor.

Figure 1
Location of settlements in São Paulo

According to Monteiro (1994 , apud Faria, 2015 , p. 117), from 1580 on, the settlements no longer ensured the supply of labor, intensifying the direct appropriation of the indigenous person through expeditions to the hinterland, in which the capture of Indian slaves was legitimized by the Just War. Indigenous people were kidnapped from Spanish reductions and taken along indigenous paths and trails into the inland. This expedition had a declared preference for the Carijó and Guarani, who were made into labor and disciplined by the Jesuits, especially because they had knowledge about agriculture.

According to Lugon (2010 , p. 36), drawing on the accounts of the priests responsible for the reductions to the south, violent expeditions were promoted by the paulistas in the 16th century to enslave the Guarani. Thousands of Guarani were chained and enslaved and then taken to the east towards the coast, where they were redistributed to different posts in order to to be traded. The author states that these actions were openly acknowledged by the authorities in São Paulo de Piratininga.

Petrone (1995 , p. 202) declares that the São Paulo nuclei became suppliers of indigenous labor:

For at least two and a half centuries, the São Paulo nucleus constituted a formidable labor market. The frequent incursions into the hinterlands allowed the paulistanos to capture what would apparently be a reputable amount of indigenous people. The contingents forced to move to Campos de Piratininga were distributed in part to the settlements (at first to the Jesuits and then to the Royal Padroado) and largely among the residents themselves (especially those responsible for the captures). In this way, they fueled the institute of administration and the phenomenon of the settlements.

Thus, the indigenous people captured and expelled from their lands became both instruments of production and merchandise by means of their enslavement ( Monteiro, 1994 , p. 216). At the end of the 17th century, payment for indigenous services was ensured by the Charter of 1696, a measure that garanteed nothing other than the very survival of the Indians, used for the the acquisition of food, clothes, medical care and spiritual indoctrination (ibid., p. 149).

The indigenous settlements were classified as sesmarias granted to indigenous people, as justified in the Royal Charter of August 21, 1587. In this Charter by the king of Portugal, one of the clearest expressions of these justifications can be found:

I, the King, make known to those who see this Charter, that I have been informed that it will be a great service of God and mine, and for the benefit of the farms and mills of my vassals in the parts of Brazil, to give sesmarias to the gentiles who come from the hinterland to do their farming, and that this will be a means for many to come quickly, in the knowledge of our holy faith and receive the holy baptism.¹ ( Rio de Janeiro, 1954 , pp. 321-322)

The dominion over the land was not actually ensured, since the wards were conditioned by the municipality, captaincy or religious order. Conflicts between the indigenous people and the religious often focused on the fight for land, so that the instability generated by the constant departure of indigenous people caused deep controversy and criticism of the administration of the settlements, centralized in the hands of the Jesuit priests. The antagonism between colonists and Jesuits was essentially due to the political aspect of the negotiation for labor.

According to Lima (2006) , when studying the expulsion of the Jesuit priests from the village of São Paulo do Piratininga between 1627 and 1655, the pioneers and others belonging to the City Council believed that the priests who constituted the Society of Jesus in São Paulo abused the good will of the monarch, intruding on royal jurisdiction, opposing the “customs of the region” (p. 126):

The protection of indigenous people and their freedom on account of their human nature gave the Jesuits dominion over the labor available in the captaincy. Contrary to the secular administration of the villages, the Ignatians also undertook a discourse based on the rights they saw to be guardians of the gentiles.

For the paulistas, it was more interesting to search for indigenous labor in the inland, the hinterland, where the armed reductions against the onslaughts of the bandeirantes were located. The illegality they saw in the Jesuits' actions led to the decision to attack the priests, removing them from the indigenous communities and also from the administration of the king's villages, to which they returned only in 1653 (ibid., p. 127). According to the author:

the Portuguese Restoration, in turn, invigorated the spirits of the contenders, providing them the ideological support that fueled the need for social standards to be reestablished in São Paulo, with the monarch imposing his customary codes, the natural law and the appropriation of the order that suited the men who had built that portion of the now restored Portuguese kingdom. (Ibid.)

In the second half of the 18th century, following the confiscation of the Jesuits’ possessions, the lands of the settlements came to be controlled by the governments of the captaincies, aggravating the amount of disputes over the lands where the indigenous people were settled, lands that were already stablished since the expulsion of the Jesuits from the captaincy of São Paulo in 1640 ( Petrone, 1995 , p. 299).

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the indigenous settlements in the province of São Paulo were emptied, due to the expulsion of the indians and the appropriation of their lands by non-indigenous people. Reports of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo over the decades of the 19th century reported the process of expropriation of lands and the abetment of the legislative authorities regarding the acceptance of the request for the extinction of the eight settlements in the city of São Paulo from 1886 onwards, reaffirmed in 1887, to acquire and sell the land (article 11 of law n. 114 of 9/27/1860, apud Faria, 2015 , p. 122).

It should be noted that the constitution of the settlements was configured as part of the process of expropriation of indigenous land – an important instrument for the indigenous communities to organize and reproduce their identity, culture and traditions – for the private appropriation of lands according to the Portuguese model. This expropriation takes place first in defense of the sesmarias, even with the donation of land to constitute the settlements, and then through the various forms of non-indigenous occupation.

Thus, this article aims to bring reflections to the field of history and city studies, taking a critical look at the urbanization processes that are historically claimed by private interests, making indigenous territories become objects of desire for the private appropriation of land.

Therefore, it is extremely important to understand the process of territory loss and confinement of native peoples, for new forms of social organization of these communities emerged through these processes, especially regarding access to natural resources, which removed the minimum conditions of the indigenous way of life, imposing the wage-earning labor to the indigenous people.

This issue must be discussed in a way that allows a more open look at the so-called traditional peoples that leave or recreate their customs and, therefore, are not recognized in the process of land demarcation, understanding this matter as a historical process of accumulation which takes place in numerous Brazilian cities.

Two types of sources are employed as a methodological path: 1) documents and reports from the Public Archives of São Paulo and the National Indian Foundation – Funai, seeking to understand the historical insertion of indigenous peoples in the space that is now urban; 2) an extensive literature review featuring classic and contemporary authors who discuss the expansion of the São Paulo metropolis, as well as its implications for the life and culture of the native peoples of São Paulo.

The appropriation and expropriation of indigenous lands in the city of São Paulo

When presenting the expropriation in England in the 17th century as an example, Marx describes that, through violent methods, the act of taking (stealing) the land, enclosing it, expelling the resident population to create a landless proletariat and increasing land concentration, large landowners are immediately created, incorporating these lands into capital. This whole process was legitimized by the constitution of private property under capitalist conditions and by the importance of the State, since “they all draw on the power of the State, on the concentrated and organized force of society” (Marx and Engels, n.d., p. 116).

Martins (1980 , p. 17) states that expropriation is associated with proletarianization, which conditions and levels the relations and laws of capital, causing the expropriated people to occupy new territories and regain their autonomy through labor. The process of expropriation of the peasants, which Martins refers to,

bears similarities with the one suffered by the Guarani, both in the colonial past and in the 20th century. This also deprived the subject of their lands, taking in some historical moments the form of expulsion or threat/intimidation so that the Guarani could not use their lands. Furthermore, it did not result only in the immediate exploitation of their workforce. In most cases, when expelled from their lands, the Guarani occupied other lands and, again subjected to the expropriation process, they moved repeatedly, abiding in fragments of their territory. This situation caused an accentuated reduction of their historically occupied lands, forcing them – in another historical moment – to temporarily sell their labor in order to survive. (Apud Faria, 2015 , p. 33)

The process of expropriation of indigenous lands began with the formation of settlements in São Paulo, in the 16th century, when colonists and Jesuits appropriated indigenous lands, forcing them to move to other regions. It is worth noting that there is an important distinction between an indian village and a settlement. According to Petrone (1995 , p. 105), the first refers to spontaneous groupings, that is, properly indigenous; and the second refers to nuclei of religious origin, created consciously, under an objective intention.

With the establishment of the settlements, mobility was totally annulled as a feature of the indigenous community, increasingly restricted to the few areas not yet occupied by the colonizers ( Monteiro, 1994 , p. 44). São Paulo de Piratininga, whose origins date back to an indigenous settlement, began the process of expropriation of native lands, in addition to promoting the expulsion and arrest of the indigenous workforce in the state of São Paulo ( Faria, 2015 , p. 117).

Alfredo (2004) affirms that the establishment of settlements is not limited to the process of “detribalization”. The expropriation of land from the indigenous people took away from them the basis for their reproduction as such, a structuring element of their identity, customs and traditions. Amoroso (2015 , p. 107) asserts that it was not expected that the Guarani would survive the Empire's settlements in the 19th century and, even if they survived, it was not expected that they would keep their cultural identity, due to the several forced actions of integration proposed by the government and the religious, with the attempt at miscegenation. These actions included catechesis, as well as several strategies of appropriation and transformation of their territory.

At the end of the 18th century, during the government of Morgado de Mateus, some strategies were created to give back indigenous lands, through the demarcation of the settlements. With the end of the pombaline era, at the end of the 18th century, the lieutenant colonel at the time, José Toledo de Arouche Rendon, was promoted to the position of director of the indians, by the governor of the Province of São Paulo, Antonio Manuel de Melo Mendonça. The new director of the indians of the province of São Paulo visited the existing indigenous settlements, examining their archives and also the archives found in the São Paulo City Council. This survey resulted in the report in which Rendon made a series of considerations about the conditions of the existing settlements in the provinces of São Paulo.

In his report, Rendon refers to the decline in the number of indigenous people in the settlements of São Paulo and mentions that it was necessary to correct the mistakes of the past that resulted in the failure to civilize and catechize the Indians. This would happen by reformulating the legislation and eliminating abuses, and with the correction of the executive power that treated indigenous people according to their interests (Berpateli, 2017, p. 270).

After verifying the conditions of the settlements in São Paulo, the lieutenant colonel launched the proposal by which such establishments should be transformed into five parishes. Therefore, in his reports it is stated that the existing chapel in the settlement of São João Batista de Peruíbe should become a branch of Vila da Conceição de Itanhaém; São José would continue as a parish; Escada would become a parish and would have a vicar recommended and paid by the Fazenda Real; Itaquaquecetuba, which had a vicar, would become a branch chapel and would encompass the settlement of São Miguel; Pinheiros was to become a branch chapel of São Paulo; M'Boy would become a district and would encompass the two neighboring settlements, Carapicuíba and Itapecerica; while Barueri would be elevated to a parish. (Rendon, [1823]1979 apud Berpateli, 2017, pp. 270-271)

The transformation of the settlements into parishes and districts did not work as proposed by Rendon, and these communities underwent few changes in their functioning, even after the end of the directors proposed by Antonio José de França Horta, in 1811. He adopted the following measures:

1. Revoked the positions of directors in the administration of the settlements;

2. The indigenous would be subjected to joining the corps of ordinances, they could live wherever they wanted and would become ordinary citizens;

3. The use of the expressions “settlements” and “settled indians” would no longer be allowed. (Berpateli, 2017, p. 271)

It is obvious that, with these measures, the captain-general intended to erase all traces of the existence of the settlements and, above all, of the indians who lived there. These, by the way, are strong indications of the deviation through which the lands destined to the indians went.

At the beginning of the 19th century, although they were decadent and almost empty, the indigenous settlements in the city of São Paulo still housed a fair amount of indigenous peoples, whose population is described in Table 1 .

Table 1
Population of São Paulo’s settlements in the early 19th century

Settlement	Year	Men	Women	Total
São Miguel Carapicuíba Pinheiros Itaquaquecetuba Barueri Embu Escada Itapecirica Peruíbe	1801 1803 1802 1802 1802 1802 1802 1802 1802	120 84 70 107 261 125 107 146 91	155 83 90 111 319 136 102 186 109	275 167 160 218 580 261 209 332 200
Total		1,111	1,291	2,402

Petrone (1995

In 1836, the settlements had very few indigenous people, according to Petrone (1995 , p. 364), as can be seen in Table 2 .

Table 2
Indigenous population of the former São Paulo’s settlements in 1836

Settlement	Population
São Miguel Itaquaquecetuba Barueri Itapecerica Pinheiros Escada Peruíbe Carapicuíba e Embu	– – 131 128 62 – – 381
Total	702

Petrone (1995

According to Tables 1 and 2 , in just over thirty years the population of the old settlements reduced drastically, from 2500 people to 700 individuals. During this period, there was an intense dispersion of the indigenous population. One of the explanations found by the local authorities to understand the evident decline of the indigenous population in the province of São Paulo is the miscegenation and the escapes (Berpateli, 2017, p 274).

It must be emphasized that the authorities often used this argument to appropriate the settlements lands, either saying that there would no longer be indigenous people in these settlements or that they would be introduced into the local society. In this case, the natives of the settlements were classified as mixed races in the villages files. Therefore, this acts made the lands into subject to tenure ( Ferreira, 1990 ; Carneiro da Cunha, 1992 ). In the letter from Machado de Oliveira, director of the Indians at the time, which was sent to the presidency of the province of São Paulo, the intention to disrupt indigenous settlements was noted:

[...] since the descendants of the indians of the primitive settlement are scattered over several districts, and already very confused in the common mass of the population [...] as these villages were [illegible] granted land for culture (the villages of S. Miguel and Pinheiros had six leagues each merged into a single sesmaria, [illegible] their founder gave them land, and Peruybehad one square league, by will of the Charter of November 23, 17.

José Joaquim Machado de Oliveira. (Public Archives of the State of São Paulo. Carta , 1854).

It should be noted that the constitution of the settlements was configured as part of the process of expropriation of indigenous territories for their private appropriation. The lands belonged to the indigenous communities and were important for their organization and reproduction of their identity, culture and traditions. This expropriation first takes place with the sesmarias, even with the donation of land to create the settlements, and then through the various forms of non-indigenous occupation.

In view of the expropriation and fragmentation of indigenous lands that began with the formation of colonial cities, it can be seen that these mechanisms that deprive the subjects of their lands are still present in contemporary capitalist cities. This process of expulsion of the indians and expropriation of their lands has its specificities according to each place and historical moment ( Faria, 2015 , p. 32).

Thus, the indigenous lands that are historically pleaded by private interests end up being the object of desire for the private appropriation of land. In the city of São Paulo, this happens in both rural and urban areas, and its origin is linked to the entire process of occupation and appropriation of space. In the clash interests of those who dispute them, the lands previously belonging to indigenous peoples acquire the sense of commodities in the hands of the State and the private sector.

Nevertheless, this process recreated the indigenous living condition. They continued to live in family groups in constant flight into the remaining forest and/or became workers in the lands of non-indigenous people, including urban spaces. Many started to fight again for part of their lands, in defense of fragments of their territory ( Faria, 2015 , p. 122).

The process of urbanization and metropolization of the city of São Paulo

At the beginning of the 19th century, the city of São Paulo was extremely modest when compared to other cities of the time. The dimension of the city can be presumed by looking at the population of its parishes, which in total comprised 9,291 inhabitants in 1836 and 19,347 in 1874, according to Müller’s study of the statistical table of the province of São Paulo (1923, pp. 169-170).

Müller (1923 apud Matos, 1955 , p. 96) registered the presence of 21,933 inhabitants in the province of São Paulo in 1836. However, it should be noted that, at the time, only three out of the 10 parishes corresponded to the urban center: Sé, Santa Efigênia and Brás, which comprised a total of 9,391 inhabitants, that is, less than half of the census population ( Table 2 ).

Old geographic plants portray the reduced size of the city of São Paulo in 1810, showing that the urban part was restricted to the Tamanduateí-Anhangabaú interfluve. The São João, Sete de Abril, Consolação, Santo Amaro and Glória streets ( Figure 2 ) formed axes of urbanization that extended through the city in some directions, although they did not reach great distances. Brás was no more than a developing neighborhood, separated from the city by the Tamanduateí floodplain. In 1881, it is possible to observe a certain development of the current neighborhoods of Santa Efigênia, Luz and Liberdade and of the current downtown area ( Figure 2 ) ( Langenbuch, 1968 , p. 9).

Figure 2
Areas represented by the plants of the city of São Paulo (1877-1897)

In the 19th century, the outskirts of the city of São Paulo had many farms that belonged to people residing in São Paulo, and their main purpose was agricultural and residential. Agricultural production was quite varied on the outskirts of the city, although it was in a very modest position when compared to other municipalities in the province. Saint-Hilaire, when describing the agricultural production in the city of São Paulo, states:

The district of São Paulo is considered to be one of the least fertile in the province, however, it produces rice, beans, corn and manioc flour with more and less abundance. It also produces tea, little coffee, a small amount of cotton and tobacco, many vegetables and fruits, sugar cane brandy; cattle, pigs, mules, sheep and especially horses are raised. Banana trees and sugar cane do not grow well, due to the elevation of the ground and the low intensity of the average heat. (Apud Langenbuch, 1968 , p. 16)

The agricultural occupation ended up taking on great dimensions. Commercial agriculture for export, which started with the exploitation of sugar cane and, later, with coffee, developed only in urban limits. The subsistence culture was predominant and supplied the city of São Paulo, thus assuming big importance. Langenbuch named the latter agricultural perimeter the “caipira belt”:

The "caipira belt", located after the farms, was characterized by the subsistence culture and the extractive agricultural production (firewood, timber, ashlar stones and ceramic products) and artisanal production (clay objects) destined to supply São Paulo. Some of the sites in this land strip are sought after by the population of São Paulo for recreational and religious purposes. Establishments, installations and circulation activities are quite numerous in the "caipira belt”. These are caused by the city of São Paulo, resulting in a high density of roads and circulation in its surroundings. The organization of this belt does not revolve around São Paulo, unlike the one before, due to the significant importance of subsistence culture, the extensive uncultivated areas and the relative polarizing role played by some villages located there. However, the activities for supplying the capital, as well as the aforementioned religious and recreational function, were evidently organized around the city. (Ibid., p. 76)

The main roads in the province converged towards São Paulo, thus causing a confluence of traffic in the city and affecting its surroundings. There was a concentration of circulation due to the export products coming from the inland and heading to the port of Santos.

The great growth of São Paulo, at the end of the 19th century, induced a wide urban expansion over the rural areas, which became part of the city, originating new neighborhoods from the belt of farms.

Regarding the industry, by the end of the 19th century, São Paulo already had several important industrial establishments, stimulated by the railroad, which showed a tendency to attract industries to its margins. Initially, these industries were established in the developing neighborhoods around the farm belt, even though they were still in the process of urbanization. According to Langenbuch, in 1880

the Anhaia spinning and weaving mill already existed in Bom Retiro, as well as the Sant’Anna weaving mill, in Brás, which manufactured burlap sacks for agricultural products and had a railroad detour to ship the merchandise to the inland. Farther away, in Água Branca, the Antártica Company — also favored by a railroad detour — produced ice and had "also started to produce a good beer, recommended by the medical authorities and which is in great demand. In the aforementioned year of 1890, the Bavária brewery was inaugurated, "built in the Moóca neighborhood, on the margins of the important Ingleza railroad". From its facilities, later acquired by “Antarctica”, originated the current establishment of this company. There was also the other great brewery of our days, "Brahma”, founded in 1886 (under the name "Fábrica de Cervejas Guanabara") in the same place where it is located until today, in Vila Mariana. In this distant suburb, where there were only a few houses, there was also a match factory and, nearby, the new slaughterhouse, well located outside the city, due to the repulsive nature of this industrial branch. (Ibid., pp. 80-81)

Regarding the railroads, the emergence of the Santos-Jundiaí Railroad (EFSJ) connected the inland to the coast from Luz Station and, later, integrated several railroads (among them the Northern Railroad – EFN). At the end of the 19th century this railroad line was renamed to Central do Brasil Railroad (EFCB), which connected the city of São Paulo to the capital at the time, Rio de Janeiro, departing from the Brás Station. Crossing the eastern part of the town, the railroad contributed to the city’s development and provided the population growth in its suburbs ( Azevedo, 1945 ; Prado Jr, 1989).

The construction of the Central do Brasil Railroad “discovered” the suburbs to the east of the central region of the city, considered until then as large uninhabited areas, disregarded by official history. These areas were gradually discovered and went from remote and unoccupied to urban centers along the railroad. That is how the parishes of Penha, Itaquera and Lajeado “arose” or were populated, as well as the current municipalities of Poá, Ferraz de Vasconcellos, Suzano and Mogi das Cruzes ( Azevedo, 1945 ), which bordered the Central do Brasil Railroad.

According to Langenbuch (1968 , pp. 83-84), the extremely rapid and diffuse growth of the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is due to two factors:

On the one hand, the process caused a real estate speculation, which was largely based on the certainty that the land was guaranteed to increase in value due to urban growth. Real estate speculation, in turn, always leads to the acquisition of plots of land for profit purposes only, which consequently leaves the land unoccupied. On the other hand, due to the astonishing growth of the city, the buyer of plots (even far ones), was aware that the city would not take long to expand into those areas.

From 1900 on, the diffuse and interrupted expansion of urban space was facilitated by the electric tramway, whose first line was installed that year, and that quickly expanded, having completely replaced the donkey-pulled carts by 1905. The "Light & Power" concessionaire did not hesitate to extend its lines to the main neighborhoods among the most isolated ones, crossing large areas that had not yet been urbanized and that, for some time, could not guarantee neighboring transportation.

The 19th century and the first years of the 20th century ensured great territorial and demographic expansions, accelerating the reorganization of space and large urbanistic investments. The incorporation of the farm belt occurred through a diffuse urban expansion, creating isolated neighborhoods. Important colonial nuclei were created with the arrival of immigrants, with the intention of increasing in value the outskirts of the city. The railroad works as an instrument for the reorganization of the São Paulo space, creating villages and neighborhoods in its surroundings. However, the metropolization of the São Paulo outskirts had not yet begun in this period, what is verified in the period after 1915.

The process of metropolization of the city of São Paulo started in the first half of the 20th century, characterized by a diversified expansion. According to Langenbuch (1968 , p. 2,3) “expansion by agglutination, the most common process of horizontal growth of cities, is joined by expansion by unfolding, which produces a proliferation of small nuclei”. Another characteristic is the imprecision of the metropolis' outer limits, since the boundaries did not encompass only the urbanized areas, but fragments with close functional links, that is, the non-urbanized surroundings that are also part of the metropolis and are structured by it ( Langenbuch, 1968 , pp. 2-3).

In this sense, the capitalist metropolis expresses itself in several concentration processes. Expropriation, urbanization and infrastructure works for the maintenance of the metropolis are among these processes. The infrastructure works carried out throughout the 20th and 21st centuries as a result of the process of expansion and metropolization of the city, such as dams, highways, railroads an power lines, induced the expropriation of indigenous lands, as well as lands from the poorest, reducing the territory occupied by them. In this sense, the construction of the Billings Dam, the Sorocaba Railroad and power lines in the south region stand out, as well as the construction of the Bandeirantes and Anhanguera highways in the northwest of the city of São Paulo ( Faria, 2015 , p. 75).

The construction of the Billings dam, built in the beginning of the 20th century, led to a flooding of the lands in the region that includes the city of São Paulo, Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, Diadema, Ribeirão Pires and Rio Grande da Serra, lands that were occupied by the Guarani. The construction of the company not only resulted in the loss of territory for the Guarani people, but also of their food, since one of their main source of food was fishing, which was made scarce by the damage caused by pollution resulting from the growth of the metropolis and the dumping of waste directly into the reservoir (ibid.).

The old Sorocaba Railroad, built in 1937, whose route connected the plateau and the coast, cut through the lands occupied by indigenous people, relying on the recruitment of indigenous labor during its construction (Pimentel, Pierri and Bellenzani, 2010, p. 92). In addition to invading indigenous lands, the railroad crossing also brought about the occupation of its surroundings, which restricted and expropriated native lands, also impacting their way of life.

The works to install the Itaberá-Tijuco Preto I, II, and III transmission lines in the late 1980s, as well as the Anhanguera highway in 1948 and the Bandeirantes highway in 1978, had an even grater impact on the living conditions of the native population living there. The transmission lines caused deforestation and forest fragmentation, affecting mainly the Guarani Mbya of the Barragem and Krukutu villages, a community located in the south of the city of São Paulo ( Ladeira, 2000 ). The Bandeirantes and Anhanguera highways made inaccessible the indigenous lands of the Guarani, a community located in the northwest of the city of São Paulo, by causing the disappearance of animals native to the region, thus affecting the hunting and fishing of this population (Faria, 2025, p. 77).

The expropriation of indigenous lands, since the beginning of the foundation of the city of São Paulo, allows us to understand the roots of the peripheralization of this population, thrown out of the limits imposed by the growth of the city, therefore, of the urban environment. Pereira (2006 , p. 24) points out:

The center-periphery model as an explanation of the city, a dual vision of urbanization in which an organized production of space – modern and industrial – was opposed to another space, where to the disorganized appropriation of land was added the precarious construction of their own homes by workers. According to this interpretation, their location in the city followed the flow of real estate interests, and a large part of the city's growth problems was due to this disorderly and peripheral horizontal expansion of the São Paulo metropolis which, according to urban planners, was extremely fast and occurred without any planning.

According to Faria (2015 , p. 81), peripheralization can be understood initially as the process of transforming rural lands into urban ones, by means of their fragmentation. Rural private property, when transformed into urban property, was intended for housing.

In addition to the infrastructure works, the process of urbanization and expansion in the city of São Paulo restricted and took over the lands of the Guarani. The urbanization process in the metropolis of São Paulo was oriented by the burst of the city into large peripheries, in a deeply unequal industrialization model, creating and perpetuating spatial inequality. It created a periphery characterized by little work added to the land, allowing its sale at low prices and the concentration of a mass of workers in areas with no facilities and with precarious housing. Thus, metropolization produces an urban fabric that proliferates, in most cases, through peripheralization ( Carlos, 2009 ). Coupled with spatial exclusion and social segregation, this process makes it difficult for some groups to access quality public services ( Silva, 2007 , p. 4).

With regard to the lands of indigenous peoples, there is increasing pressure on their territories, which impacts the way of life of indigenous communities. This entire process results in the enclosure and confinement of this population, who live daily with direct and indirect expulsion from their lands, many of which have not yet been demarcated ( Faria, 2015 p. 79).

The indigenous peoples can be visualized in this scenario, looking at the city as a space of multiple relationships and territories. The 2010 IBGE (Brazilian National Institute of Geography and Statistics) Census (IBGE, 2012) shows a population of 896,9 thousand indigenous people belonging to 305 ethnic groups and speaking 274 languages, living in diverse urban and rural realities. It is noteworthy that, among 896,900 indigenous people, 327,800 live in urban areas, or 36% of this total. Of these, only 8% are in already demarcated indigenous lands (Lourenção, Silva and Guirau, 2013, p. 86).

Thus, 327,800 indigenous people live in urban areas and 92% live outside their indigenous lands of origin, totaling 298,800 indigenous people. Also according to the 2010 Demographic Census, there are more than 12,900 indigenous people from more than 52 ethnicities² inhabiting the greater São Paulo area, making it the fourth municipality in self-declared indigenous population ( IBGE, 2012 ).

In São Paulo, in 1991, there were about 4,690 indigenous people, which increased to 18,692 in 2000 and 12,977 in 2010. The city is the fourth municipality with the largest registered indigenous population living in the territory. IBGE makes a distinction for indigenous people who inhabit regularized lands, that is, those who live in villages in the process of demarcation, and those who have been displaced and live in the periphery of the metropolis ( Faria 2015 , p. 212). According to data from the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai), the federal agency responsible for indigenous health policies,

in 2012 there were 2,702 registered indigenous people in the city of São Paulo. Of those, 1,401 are Guarani, 1,021 Pankararu, 137 Pankarare and the rest are subdivided into 14 different ethnicities. The Guarani were distributed in the following indigenous lands (TI): TI Jaraguá (Tekoa Ytu and Tekoa Pyau), with 581 indigenous people occupying approximately 3 hectares; TI Tenondé Porã (Barragem), with 26 hectares and 606 indigenous people; and TI Krukutu, with the same area and 218 indigenous people.

In 2013, the period of the last available data, SESAI altered the policy of information disclosure and counted 1,422 indigenous people in São Paulo, living only in the three regularized Indigenous Lands: 625 in TI Tenondé Porã; 232 in TI Krukutu; and 565 in TI Jaraguá (Tekoa Ytu). Thus, the agency disregarded the five other existing Guarani villages in São Paulo, although it added the population up only in the three regularized TIs. (Apud Faria, 2015 , p. 213)

Even though they were made invisible, there are two situations regarding these indigenous peoples: three Guarani villages located in the south (TI Tenondé Porã) and northwest (TI Jaraguá) of the city; and a large indigenous population distributed over several neighborhoods of the greater São Paulo area, constituted by families who migrated from their homelands from various regions of the country. With 1.7 hectares, this land is currently the smallest indigenous land in Brazil and has been demanding its re-demarcation process.

The changes, expropriations and interventions suffered by the indigenous people over time can be seen in the statements of Pedro Macena and cacique Jandira in the identification and delimitation reports of the indigenous land Jaraguá issued by Funai, which highlight the changes in the space and the way of life:

In Tenondé [tekoa Tenondé Porã, in the southern part of the city of São Paulo], I lived and grew up there. At the time, between 1972 and 1980, the village was very bushy, there was no green area, in those farms, houses, plots, there was nothing, almost anything. There was only the little road, because in the village there is the little church, the only little house that existed was that little church, which still exists there, and there was a little dirt road that goes all the way to the dam [...]. That asphalt road was a cart road, at the time there was no one, there was nothing there. So on that side there was bush, on the dam’s side it was all bush, real bush. So much so that when we were children, we used to go hunting there, we would hunt, catch passion fruit, we would make traps on the side of the dam because it was all bush, real bush. [...] The little road to the Colony we only saw on the weekend, one car or another, because the fishermen went fishing in the reservoir. At that time the water was very clean, very clear, you could even see the fish in the bottom of the water, we played, we swam, so I lived there at that time. At that time, there were not many juruá [non-indigenous people] living there, once in a while people found their way, took the road and at the end they saw the village and said: “Oh, this is the village, we’ve come to fish, can we can leave the car there?”, so they left it in the village, but people went anyway, without knowing it, sometimes we would find a car and without warning they were there. Then they fished there, until 1987, 1988, then people started to come, to have farms there, they started to create farms, they started to build lots. Then they started to pave the road to Colony, and people started to go there, they started building farms, houses and people started arriving. Then they started to fix the road from the Colony to the Dam, they started to fix the road, to throw gravel, then they started to build farms, small farms, plots on the upper side, then it grew to the way it is today [...]. Then a lot of things changed, and changed a lot, on the upper side, then it grew to the way it is today. [...] Then it changed and changed a lot. (Pimentel, Pierri and Bellenzani, 2012, pp. 141-142)

When we got here (Jaraguá) there was a lot of bushes. This water here [from Ribeirão das Lavras] used to be clean and now it's all dirty, sewage pouring into it. There, where the wood is now, we used to hunt wild pigs. There were a lot of bushes, there weren't many juruá, so we walked through the woods. And then we stayed here for a long time, people from the surroundings started arriving. ( Pimentel et al., 2013, p , p. 119).

It can be noted that the changes described by the Guarani include deforestation, the pollution of rivers and bodies of water and especially the occupation of their lands, resulting in their expropriation. Therefore, there is an increasing pressure on indigenous lands, which radically modifies their way of life and their relationship with the territory and the environment, often resulting from the enclosure and expulsion from their territories. Because their lands are not properly regularized and demarcated, the indigenous peoples do not have full possession of them, leading them to a constant peripheralization.

Conclusions

Indigenous rights in Brazil have been historically violated. During the colonial period, the Indians were treated as incapable of living without the mediation of the colonizer. The process of occupation of Brazilian territory and the study of the historical growth of the city of São Paulo show the seizure of indigenous lands and the disruption of their ways of life, leading them to a continuous process of peripheralization. Whether by expulsion, enclosure or confinement in territories that do not guarantee the physical or cultural survival of native peoples, the capitalist exploitation policy consists in eliminating native ethnic groups from the social body in order to give way to the perverse logic of the market. The history of violence against indigenous peoples in the city of São Paulo since its colonization is still evident in the daily lives of indigenous peoples. As an example, news dated September 2017 showed a new attempt to expropriate indigenous people by the government of the State of São Paulo, with a writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) against the declaratory ordinance of the TI Jaraguá (decree n. 581/2015) that aims to re-demarcate its territory – from 1.7 hectares to 532 hectares –, which is currently considered the smallest indigenous land in the country. The writ of mandamus was motivated by the overlapping of the indigenous community in the Jaraguá State Park. The government claims that such overlapping “weakens the protection of the territory due to the consolidation of urbanization around the protected natural areas” and, therefore, “does not fit as a real strategy to benefit indigenous cultural reproduction”.³

The destructuring of indigenous territories, as can be seen in the aforementioned news, in most cases has been shaped by public authorities in favor of the development and urbanization of urban spaces, making the territories and the access to services and public policies related to native peoples increasingly peripheral. This ensures the continuity of the project of extermination and exclusion of indigenous peoples that has been going on throughout history.

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Notes

• 1
  The original spelling was kept.
• 2
  They are: Aranã, Atikum, Baniwa, Cinta Larga, Fulni-ô, Geripankó, Guajajara, Guarani Kaiowá, Guarani Mby’a, Guarani Nhamdeva, Kaimbé, Kaingang, Kalapalo, Kambiwá, Kamayurá, Kanela, Kantaruré, Kapinawá, Karajá, Kariri, Kariri – Xocó, Katokim, Kaxinawá, Kayabi, Kayapó, Krenak, La Klãnõ, Macuxi, Munduruku, Mura, Nhambiquara, Pankará, Pankararé, Pankararu, Pataxó, Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe, Potiguara, Puri, Tapeba, Terena, Ticuna, Tremembé, Truká, Tukano, Tuxá, Tuyuka, Wassu Cocal, Xavante, Xerente, Xukuru de Ororubá (Pesqueira - Pernambuco), Xukuru – Kariri, Yanomami. Source: Table of ethnicities of the greater São Paulo area – “Índios na Cidade” Project – NGO Opção Brasil. Available at: http://projetoindiosnacidade.blogspot.com/2009/08/tabela-das-etnias-da-grande-sao-paulo.html . Access on: 20 Jun 2018.
• 3
  Available at: https://www.jusbrasil.com.br/diarios/documentos/237441559/andamento-do-processo-n-2015-0246077-2-mandado-de-seguranca-30-09-2015-do-stj . Access on: 10 Dez 2018.
• Translation: this article was translated from Portuguese to English by Gabriela Gandolfo da Silva, [e-mail]

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  08 Aug 2022
• Date of issue
  Sep-Dec 2022

History

• Received
  30 Jan 2019
• Accepted
  16 June 2020